Jeff London

For NPR News, I'm Jeff London in New York.

Born Thomas Straussler in what was then Czechoslovakia, his family fled the Nazis during World War II.

His father was killed, his mother remarried a man named Stoppard, and the family settled in England, the playwright told NPR in 2022.

I'd been turned into a little English boy.

I was very happy being a little English boy.

and wrote dense, intellectual, linguistically complex plays.

His big break was the existential Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead that focused on two minor characters in Hamlet.

He became a superstar playwright with works like The Real Thing and the semi-autobiographical Leopoldstadt.

Stoppard won a screenwriting Oscar in 1999 for Shakespeare in Love.

For NPR News, I'm Jeff London in New York.

The $22.5 million musical, based on a documentary about a couple in Florida who attempt to build the largest private home in America, only to be upended by the 2008 financial crisis, is succumbing to its own financial crisis.

The show announced that it would close on January 4th after only a couple of months on Broadway.

Despite grossing over $1 million a week, most of the reviews were mixed to poor, word of mouth has been negative, and the advanced sales have been soft.

For NPR News, I'm Jeff London in New York.

Talks between both unions and the Broadway League, the organization which represents producers and theater owners, are ongoing.

But coming on the heels of Broadway's most successful season ever, with a box office tally of close to $1.9 billion dollars,

The Musicians Union says it's not interested in making concessions.

President Bob Stillman claims the League is threatening to cut wages, health care, and jobs, stating, quote,

The Broadway League has said, quote, we always prefer to negotiate with our union partners at the bargaining table rather than in the press.

For NPR News, I'm Jeff London in New York.